PAM. 

MISC. 


L  e:  ^  i  ^  T  p:;  k  s 


KESPECTING  THE 


JJ'etu^HJork : 

LEWIS  J.  BATES,  PUBLISHER,  48  BEEKMAN  STREET. 


I 


1  8  6  3. 

JOHN  A.  GRAY,  PRINTER,  P?!  &  97  CLIEF  STREET. 


LETTER  TO  THE  AMERICAN  TRACT  SOCIETY. 

» 


New-York,  Monday,  February  14,  1853. 

To  Rev.  R.  8.  Gooh^  Corresponding  Secretary  American  Tract  Society : 

Reverend  Sir  : — I  have  been  favored  with  your  letter  of  the  last  month 
setting  forth  the  pecuniary  exigences  of  the  American  Tract  Society,  and  sug¬ 
gesting  to  my  “charitable  consideration”  a  donation  to  its  funds.  Few 
persons  hailed  with  more  satisfaction  than  myself  the  establishment  of  your 
Society,  or  more  cordially  approved  the  truly  Catholic  principles  on  which 
it  was  founded.  I  long  since  became  one  of  its  Life  Directors,  and  have  fre¬ 
quently  contributed  to  its  funds.  The  professed  object  of  the  Society  was  to 
inculcate  Christian  faith  and  practice,  and  to  a  very  great  extent  it  has  been 
faithful  to  its  profession,  and  I  doubt  not  that  it  has  been  largely  instru¬ 
mental  in  promoting  the  spiritual  welfare  of  multitudes. 

But  the  good  effected  by  human  agency  is  seldom  without  alloy,  and  for 
some  years  painful  doubts  have  intruded  themselves  upon  my  mind,  as  to 
the  propriety  of  the  course  pursued  by  the  Society  in  regard  to  a  most  mo¬ 
mentous  subject.  Against  these  doubts  I  have  long  struggled,  and  at  times 
with  success.  But  they  have  again  and  again  returned  with  increased  force, 
and  they  have  been  so  entirely  confirmed  by  some  recent  developments,  that 
I  am  constrained  to  return  a  most  reluctant  denial  to  the  application  in  your 
letter.  I  am  well  aware  of  the  deep  responsibility  I  assume  in  placing  any 
obstacle,  however  slight,  in  the  way  of  the  Society.  Of  this  responsibility, 
the  pain  I  may  give  valued  friends,  and  the  obloquy  I  may  draw  upon  myself 
from  a  very  minor  portion — I  feel  the  infinitely  greater  weight  of  my  respon¬ 
sibility  even  to  my  Maker,  for  withholding  my  aid  from  an  agency  that  has 
effected  so  much  for  his  glory  and  the  good  of  man.  This  responsibility  I 
have  anxiously  pondered,  and  have  come  to  the  conviction  that  I  may  not 
avoid  it.  The  facts  and  reasons  which  have  produced  this  conviction  I  will 
proceed  to  state.  Should  they  be  found  insufficient  to  justify  me,  they  will 


2 


tend  to  save  others  from  the  error  into  which  I  have  fallen ;  and  should  they, 
on  the  other  hand,  be  found  valid,  they  may  lead  to  salutary  results. 

The  classification  of  sins  into  those  of  commission  and  omission  is  trite. 
All  Scripture  testifies  that  mere  inaction  has  often  incurred  the  Divine  wrath. 
Ths  Jewish  priests,  although  sedulous  in  the  routine  of  ceremonial  duties, 
were  denounced  in  the  indignant  language  of  inspiration  as  “dumb  dogs,” 
because  they  omitted  to  rebuke  popular  sins.  In  the  account  of  the  last 
judgment,  those  who  are  to  “go  away  into  everlasting  punishment”  are  not 
condemned  as  heretics,  nor  as  the  perpetrators  of  crime,  but  as  guilty  of 
having  omitted  to  administer  to  the  necessities  of  Christ’s  afflicted  and 
oppressed  brethren. 

You  have  by  this  time.  Sir,  anticipated  that  my  charge  against  the  Society 
is  one  of  omission.  There  is  a  giant,  and  in  its  influence  an  all-pervading 
sin  in  our  land — a  sin  which  is  destroying  the  peace  and  happiness  of  mil¬ 
lions,  both  for  the  life  that  is  and  for  that  which  is  to  come  ;  and  which  is 
hardening  the  hearts  and  paralyzing  the  consciences  of  many  more  by  its 
reflective  consequences.  Yet  the  American  Tract  Society  has  publicly  and 
officially  announced  through  you,  as  its  organ,  that  it  does  not  intend  to 
recognize  even  the  existence  of  this  sin ! 

About  a  year  since,  the  ministers  and  delegates  of  the  Congregational 
Union  of  Fox  River,  Illinois,  addressed  a  very  Christian  letter  to  the  Society. 
In  this  letter  they  very  forcibly  remark  :  “We  feel  sure  that  the  time  has 
come  when  the  continued  absence  from  the  publications  of  your  Society  of 
all  that  relates  to  Slavery  will  be  significant ;  that  silence  can  no  longer  be 
neutrality  or  indifference :  and  that  a  tract  literature  which  speaks  less  plainly 
of  Slavery  than  of  other  specific  evils  will  conduce  to  a  defective,  partial,  and 
unsound  morality.” 

In  your  official  reply  of  27th  February,  1852,  without  letting  a  word  escape 
your  pen,  acknowledging  the  sinfulness  of  American  Slavery,  you  urge 
various  reasons  for  not  breaking  the  silence  so  long  observed  by  the  Society 
respecting  human  bondage.  “It  would  seem  a  sacrifice  of  a  greater  to  a 
lesser  good  to  engage  in  the  discussion  of  a  topic  already  exhausted,  with  the 
likelihood  of  satisfying  none,  and  with  the  certainty  of  alienating  multitudes 
of  our  best  friends,”  &c.  Your  publications,  we  are  informed,  must  be  of  a 
character  “  calculated  to  meet  the  approbation  q/uZ?  evangelical  Christians  ;” 
and  you  seem  to  think,  that  amid  the  anti-slavery  agitation  it  is  desirable 
“  that  at  least  one  institution  should  move  forward  on  the  simple  errand  that 
brought  the  Saviour  into  the  world — proclaiming  Christ  and  him  crucified,” 
&c. ;  and  you  aver  “that  on  no  subject,  probably,  are  evangelical  Christians 
more  at  variance”  than  Slavery ;  and  you  conclude  with  declaring  that  “  the 
course  of  duty  seems  plain  before  us  to  adhere  as  a  Society  to  the  simple 
gospel  in  its  essential  saving  truths.”  The  Union  were  not  convinced  by 
your  arguments ;  on  the  contrary,  they  resolved  that  ere  long  no  catholic 
Society  of  publication  can  well  refuse  to  express  anti-slavery  truth  in  some 
of  its  various  forms  of  moral  or  biblical  argument,  fact  or  sentiment ;  and  to 
hasten  this  desired  consummation  they  ordered  the  correspondence  to  be 
made  public. 


3 


I  am  unable  to  reconcile  the  position  assumed  in  your  letter  with  the  past 
action  of  the  Society,  or  with  the  usually  received  ideas  of  Christian  obliga¬ 
tion.  It  seems  your  tracts  must  meet  the  approbation  of  all  evangelical 
Christians.  If  we  ask  who  these  are,  we  shall  be  told,  such  as  agree  in 
maintaining  the  scriptural  authority  of  certain  abstract  doctrines.  But  we 
all  know  that  these  same  Christians  differ  widely  on  various  questions  of 
moral  practice.  You  are  not  ignorant  that  evangelical  wine  and  rumsellers 
and  drinkers  abound  both  in  town  and  country ;  and  yet  your  Society  is 
lavish  of  its  censures  on  them.  It  condemns  the  theatre  and  race-course, 
although  not  ^  few  believers  in  the  evangelical  creed  frequent  both.  You 
issue  publications  against  dancing,  and  yet  how  many  sons  and  daughters 
mingle  in  the  waltz,  in  the  presence  and  with  the  consent  of  their  evangel¬ 
ical  parents?  You  condemn  travelling  on  the  Sabbath,  yet  our  Sunday 
steamboats  and  railcars  are  not  without  their  evangelical  passengers.  You 
do  not  hesitate  to  rebuke  gambling,  yet  evangelicals  may  be  found  at  the 
card  and  the  billiard-table.  As  far  as  I  can  judge,  the  publications  of  your 
Society  have  been  in  accordance  with  the  rule  you  announce  on  few  sub¬ 
jects,  except  that  of  human  bondage  and  its  attendant  atrocities.  I  know 
not  that  in  the  twenty-seven  years  of  its  existence  the  Society  has  published 
a  line  intended  to  touch  the  conscience  of  an  American  slave-breeder  or 
trader.  On  the  contrary,  especial  care  has  been  taken  to  expunge  from  your 
reprints  every  expression  that  could  even  imply  a  censure  on  our  stupendous 
national  iniquity.  The  Society  has  no  hesitation  in  condemning  cruelty, 
oppression,  and  injustice,  but  it  shrinks  with  affright  at  the  very  idea  of 
acknowledging  that  it  is  cruel,  oppressive,  and  unjust,  to  reduce  a  MacTcm^xi 
to  the  condition  of  a  beast  of  burden,  to  deny  him  legal  marriage,  and  to 
sell  him  and  his  children  to  the  highest  bidder,  in  company  with  the  beasts 
of  the  field.  This  extreme  sensitiveness  is  shown  in  the  alteration  of  a  pass¬ 
age  in  your  reprint  of  Gurney’s  essay  on  the  habitual  exercise  of  love  to 
God.  Gurney  says :  “  If  this  love  had  always  prevailed  among  professing 
Christians,  where  would  have  been  the  sword  of  the  crusader  ?  Where  the 
African  slave-trade  ?  Where  the  odious  system  which  permits  to  man  a 
property  in  his  fellow-men,  and  converts  rational  beings  into  marketable 
chattels  ?”  (Page  142.)  This  was  meat  too  strong  for  the  digestion  of  the 
Society,  and  hence  it  was  carefully  diluted,  so  that  it  might  be  swallowed 
without  producing  the  slightest  nausea,  as  follows  ;  “If  this  love  had  always 
prevailed  among  professing  Christians,  where  would  have  been  the  sword  of 
the  crusader  ?  Where  the  tortures  of  the  Inquisition  f  Where  every  system 
of  oppression  and  wrong  by  which  he  who  has  the  pow^r  revels  in  luxury 
and  ease  at  the  expense  of  his  fellow-men?”  (Page  199.)  It  was  an  inge¬ 
nious  thought  to  turn  upon  the  Inquisition  Gurney’s  application  of  his  sub¬ 
ject  to  slave-traders  and  holders,  and  to  lose  sight  of  property  in  man^  in 
indefinite  generalities. 

Your  last  Report,  in  announcing  the  reprint  of  the  Memoir  of  Mary  Lundie 
Duncan,  tells  us :  “A  few  pages,  which  the  Committee  deemed  of  less  interest 
to  the  general  reader,  or  which  alluded  to  points  of  disagreement  among, 
evangelical  Christians^  have  been  dropped.”  pages  dropped  are  indeed: 


4 


few  and  unimportant,  and  seemed  to  have  been  dropped  for  the  purpose  of 
justifying  the  word  “abridged”  on  the  title-page.  But  the  passages  dropped 
are  very  significant.  In  her  Diary  for  March  22,  1833,  the  following  passage 
is  expunged  in  the  Society’s  edition,  while  every  other  word  on  the  page  is 
retained;  “We  have  been  lately  much  interested  in  the  emancipation  of 
slaves.  I  never  heard  eloquence  more  overpowering  than  that  of  George 
Thompson.  I  am  most  thankful  that  he  has  been  raised  up.  Oh  that  the 
measure  soon  to  be  proposed  in  Parliament  may  be  effectual!” 

Poor  Mary !  The  American  Tract  Society  will  not  allow  you  to  breathe  a 
v/ish  for  M/^est  India  emancipation  by  act  of  Parliament,  nor  to  admire  the 
eloquence  of  an  anti-slavery  lecturer.  The  biographer  of  this  lovely  and  highly 
gifted  saint  remarks  :  “  When  George  Thompson,  the  eloquent  pleader  for 
the  abolition  of  slavery,  was  called  to  visit  the  United  States,  in  the  hope  that 
his  remarkable  power  of  influencing  the  public  mind  might  be  beneficial 
there,  we  find  the  youthful  philanthropist,  whose  ardent  mind  glowed  with 
exalted  sympathies,  and  felt  an  interest  in  loftier  occupations  than  usually 
kindle  the  enthusiasm  of  girls  of  her  age,  embodying  her  desires  for  his  suc¬ 
cess  in  the  following  verses.”  This  paragraph  and  the  lines  they  introduced 
are  both  expunged  from  your  edition.  A  Broadway  bookseller  had  already 
published  an  unmutilated  copy  of  the  book,  but  this  religious  Society,  more 
sensitive  than  even  New-  Yorh  traffic  to  the  good-will  of  the  slaveholders, 
suppressed  not  merely  the  anti-slavery  poetry,  but  the  testimony  of  a  mother 
to  the  philanthropic  sentiments  of  her  departed  daughter  I  But  the  work  of 
expurgation  did  not  stop  here.  In  Mary’s  Diary  is  the  following  entry : 
“August  1 :  Freedom  has  dawned  this  morning  on  the  British  colonies. 
{No  more  degraded  lower  than  the  brutes — no  more  bowed  down  with  suffer¬ 
ing  from  which  there  is  no  redress^)  the  sons  of  Africa  have  obtained  the 
rights  of  fellow-subjects — the  rights  of  man,  the  immortal  creation  of  God. 
{Now  they  may  seeh  the  sanctuary  fearless  of  the  lash — they  may  call  their 
children  their  own.)  Hope  will  animate  their  hearts,  and  give  vigor  to  their 
efforts.  Oh  for  more  holy  men  to  show  them  the  way  of  salvation!  The 
Lord  keep  them  from  riot  and  idleness !  They  have  been  so  little  taught 
that  He  only  can  avert  confusion  and  tumult  as  the  result  of  their  joy. 
Some  Christians  there  are  among  their  number  who  will  influence  others. 
My  poor  fellow-travellers  through  life’s  short  wilderness,  may  I  meet  with 
many  of  you  in  heaven,  where  even  I  can  hope  to  dwell  through  the  love  of 
my  risen  Lord !  There  none  will  despise  the  negro  whom  Jesus  Christ  has 
pitied  and  redeemed.” 

The  passages  in  italics  and  in  parentheses  are  expunged  in  the  Society’s 
edition.  Mary  is  permitted  to  announce  that  the  negroes  have  become  Brit¬ 
ish  subjects,  to  express  her  apprehensions  of  riot  and  idleness,  confusion  and 
tumult,  as  consequences  of  emancipation,  and  to  indulge  the  hope  of  meeting 
negroes  in  heaven,  where  they  will  not  be  despised.  But  she  is  not  permitted 
to  allude  to  the  cruelties  and  abominations  to  which  these  same  negroes  had 
been  subjected.  The  expunged  passages  involve  no  doctrinal  “  points  of 
disagreement  among  evangelical  Christians.”  Why,  then,  were  they  stricken 
out?  Because  the  same  cruelties  and  enormities  to  which  she  alluded  are 


5 


perpetrated  at  home,  by  evangelical  Christians,  who  belong  to  and  support  the 
American  Tract  Society. 

The  Society  will  not  venture  the  denial  of  the  tr^lth  of  the  expunged 
assertions.  It  would  surely  not  aver  that  American  slave  children  do  belong 
to  their  parents.  It  would  be  put  to  confusion  by  the  solemn  judicial  affirm¬ 
ance  of  the  validity  of  a  bequest  of  a  mother  to  one  person,  and  of  her 
nnhorn  children  to  another.  It  would  be  confuted  by  the  sale  of  children  at 
auction,  and  in  particular  of  a  sale  reported  within  the  few  last  days,  of  a 
child  three  years  old  bringing  $800  under  the  hammer ;  while  a  Southern 
paper  adverts  with  pride  to  the  high  price  of  human  flesh,  as  evidence  of 
“our  agricultural  prosperity.”  Your  Societ}^  Sir,  expunged  Mary’s  asser¬ 
tions,  not  because  they  were  untrue,  but  because  they  are  now  as  true  here 
as  they  were  in  the  West  Indies ;  and  it  is  the  policy  of  the  Society  to  cover 
up  and  conceal  whatever  reflects  odium  on  the  “peculiar  institution.” 

Your  Committee  tell  us,  in  their  last  Report,  that  they  “have  never  lost 
sight  of  their  responsibilities  to  those  of  tender  years  ;”  and  it  seems  they 
issue  The  Child's  Paper^  of  which  great  numbers  are  circulated.  Yet  the 
responsibilities  to  children  resting  on  the  Committee  permit  them  to  expunge 
an  expression  likely  to  remind  us  that  there  are  hundreds  of  thousands  of 
children  in  our  land  who  are  mere  articles  of  merchandize.  These  very 
responsibilities  are,  it  seems,  perfectly  compatible  with  entire  silence  re¬ 
specting  the  ignorance  and  degradation  of  this  great  multitude  “  of  tender 
years.”  The  Committee  know  that  in  some  of  our  States  even  a  free  mother, 
if  her  complexion  be  dark,  is  by  law  liable  to  be  scourged  on  her  bare  back, 
should  she  be  caught  teaching  her  little  ones  to  read  jmur  Childs  Paper ; 
yet  not  a  word  of  remonstrance  escapes  the  American  Tract  Society  !  In  the 
very  last  number  of  The  Childs  Paper  I  read  that  “  there  are  between 
10,000  and  12,000  children  in  the  city  of  New-York  v/lio  never  enter  a 


church  or  school,  and  who  cannot  read  the  Bible . Here  are 

heathen  at  home  ;  what  is  doing  for  them  ? . These  children  must 


be  cared  for.”  Indeed !  And  is  it  nothing  to  your  Society  that  there  are  in 
our  country  about  half  a  million  of  little  black  heathen  who  are  prevented 
by  law  from  reading  the  Bible  ?  These  little  heathen  have  souls  as  imper¬ 
ishable,  destinies  as  momentous,  as  the  white  heathen  in  New-York.  Must 
this  half  million  be  cared  for?  Ah !  that  is  a  “  point  of  disagreement  among 
evangelical  Christians,”  and  hence  the  Society  must  not  even  recognize  the 
existence  of  children  who  do  not  belong  to  their  parents. 

Permit  me  now  to  ask  your  attention  to  the  very  different  course  pursued 
by  the  Society  in  regard  to  the  traffic  in  the  bones  and  sinews,  the  mind  and 
soul  of  immortal  man,  and  the  traffic  in  intoxicating  drinks.  Between 
twenty  and  thirty  of  your  tracts  are  devoted  to  the  subject  of  intemperance 
in  all  its  relations.  It  is  curious  to  observe  the  desire  of  your  writers  to 
avail  themselves  of  the  arguments  and  illustrations  furnished  by  slavery,  and 
at  the  same  time  their  extreme  caution  in  avoiding  all  reference  to  American 
slavery.  Where  (even  by  implication)  censure  is  cast  on  human  bondage,  it 
is  human  bondage  in  other  countries  than  our  own.  In  Tract  No.  800,  to 
the  excuse  of  the  distiller  that  he  cannot  sacrifice  his  property,  conscience  is 


6 


made  fo  answer;  “  Suppose  you  were  now  in  Brazil^  and  the  owner  of  a 
large  establishment  to  fit  out  slave-traders  with  handcuffs  for  the  coast  of 
Africa,  and  could  not  change  your  business  without  considerable  pecuniary 
sacrifice,  would  you  make  the  sacrifice,  or  would  you  keep  your  fires  and 
hammers  going?”  In  remonstrating  against  the  cruelty  of  the  traffic  in 
rum,  it  is  remarked  :  “  If  a  man  lives  only  to  make  a  descent  on  the  peaceful 
abodes  of  Africa,  and  to  tear  away  parents  from  their  weeping  children, 
and  husbands  from  their  wives  and  homes,  where  is  the  man  that  will  deem 
this  a  moral  business?”  “Other  men  will  prey  on  unoffending -4/’Wc<z,  and 
bear  human  sinews  across  the  ocean  to  be  sold.  Have  you  a  right  to  do  it  ?” 
(No.  305.)  Once  more,  speaking  of  the  duty  of  rescuing  the  drunkard,  it  is 
asked:  “What  would  you  not  do  to  pull  a  neighbor  out  of  the  water,  or 
out  of  the  fire,  or  to  deliver  him  irom. Algerine  captivity?”  (No.  422.)  So 
it  seems  the  Society  is  at  liberty  to  hold  up  as  cruel  and  immoral  the  traffic 
in  human  flesh  in  Africa,  Brazil,  and  Algiers,  but  not  in  our  own  land — that 
being  a  “  point  Of  disagreement  among  evangelical  Christians.” 

And  now.  Sir,  I  ask  you,  on  what  evangelical  principle  does  the  Society 
condemn  the  foreign  slave-trade?  Is  it  because  an  act  of  Congress  forbids 
it  ?  The  Society  has  not  yet,  I  believe,  like  some  of  its  patrons,  elevated 
the  lower  above  the  higher  law,  and  made  the  national  statute-book  the 
standard  of  right  and  wrong.  Nor,  indeed,  can  the  advocates  of  the  supre¬ 
macy  of  the  lower  law  maintain  that  an  act  of  Congress  can  render  immoral 
the  conduct  of  Africans,  Algerines,  and  Brazilians,  when  that  conduct  is  in 
conformity  with  the  laws  of  their  respective  countries.  Is  it,  then,  in  refer¬ 
ence  to  the  higher  law,  the  will  of  God  revealed  in  his  blessed  gospel,  that 
the  foreign  traffic  is  condemned  ?  If  so,  then  I  ask  to  what  divine  precept 
is  it  opposed?  Buying  and  selling  and  the  exchange  of  commodities  is 
essential  to  human  society,  and  is  no  where  condemned  in  God’s  Word, 
Why  then.  Sir,  I  ask  in  all  seriousness,  is  it  more  immoral  for  an  African  to 
sell,  or  a  Brazilian  to  buy  men  and  women,  than  apes  and  parrots  ?  Is  it 
because  men  and  women  are  not  by  the  higher  law  subjects  of  commerce? 
Before  you  reply  in  the  affirmative,  remember  that  our  laws,  framed  for  the 
most  part  by  evangelical  Christians,  expressly  declare  vast  multitudes  of 
men  and  women  to  be  mere  chattels,  vendible  articles.  Said  Henry  Clay, 
on  the  floor  of  the  Senate,  vindicating  property  in  man,  “that  is  property 
which  the  law  makes  property.”  Now,  every  slave  sold  in  Africa  to  a  Bra¬ 
zilian  merchant  is  property  by  the  African  law,  and  is  granted,  bargained, 
sold,  and  delivered  by  a  title  as  valid  as  that  ever  received  by  Mr.  Clay  to 
one  of  his  slaves.  Again,  then,  I  ask,  why  is  the  sale  and  purchase  of  a 
man  in  Africa  most  undoubtedly  a  heinous  crime,  while  the  immorality  of 
the  sale  and  purchase  in  Virginia  of  a  fellow-countryman  and  perhaps  a 
fellow-Christian,  is  such  an  abstruse  question  that  the  American  Tract  So¬ 
ciety  will  not  venture  to  approach  its  discussion?  Can  it  be  that  your 
Society  is  silent  on  this  traffic  because  it  is  sanctioned  by  human  law?  This 
can  hardly  be,  since  the  Society  is  unsparing  in  its  denunciations  of  the 
traffic  in  rum,  notwithstanding  the  powers  that  be,  ordained  as  they  are  of 


God,  have  taken  the  traffic  under  their  peculiar  guardianship.  Very  irrev¬ 
erently  does  your  tract  speak  of 

Stale  debauch  forth  issuing  from  the  sties 

That  LAW  has  licensed.”  (No.  240.) 

You  are  silent  on  slavery  because,  as  you  say,  on  no  other  subject  proba¬ 
bly  “  are  evangelical  Christians  more  at  variance.”  I  think,  Sir,  you  greatly 
overrate  the  evangelical  patrons  and  advocates  of  slavery.  I  doubt  whether 
you  can  find  one  hundred  evangelical  Christians  out  of  the  slave  States,  un¬ 
connected  in  any  way  with  slavery,  slaveholders,  and  cotton,  who  will  pub¬ 
licly  avow  that  American  Slavery  is  a  righteous  institution,  and  the  slave 
code  in  accordance  with  the  spirit  and  precepts  of  the  gospel  of  Christ. 
Surely,  surely.  Sir,  I  should  make  a  most  extravagant  and  reckless  estimate 
were  I  to  compute  the  evangelical  champions  of  slave-breeding,  slave-trading, 
and  slave-catching,  at  a  tithe  of  the  evangelicals  who  in  their  practice  re¬ 
pudiate  total  abstinence  from  intoxicating  drinks.  Nevertheless,  on  this  last 
“  point  of  evangelical  disagreement,”  the  Society  expresses  itself  without 
fear  and  without  reserve. 

But  some  of  our  friends,  you  may  say,  insist  that  the  Bible  sanctions 
slavery,  and  what  can  w’e  do  ?  And  some  of  your  friends  also  insist  that 
the  Bible  sanctions  moderate  drinking  and  the  mle  of  intoxicating  drinks, 
and  what  do  you  do?  Why,  you  tell  us,  “The  great  laws  of  morals  are 
indeed  unchanged,  but  the  degrees  of  light  and  knowledge  which  men  pos¬ 
sess  may  be  very  different.  We  should  not  deem  it  right  to  apply  our  laws 
and  knowledge  in  judging  of  the  laws  of  Sparta,  which  authorized  theft — 
nor  our  views  of  the  marriage  relation,  to  condemn  the  conduct  of  Abraham, 
David,  and  Jacob.  Man’s  conduct  is  to  be  estimated  by  the  light  he  has.” 
To  the  plea  that  the  Bible  does  not  prohibit  the  traffic,  it  is  answered, 
“Where  is  there  a  formal  prohibition  of  piracy,  or  bigamy,  or  kidnapping, 
or  suicide,  or  duelling,  or  the  sale  of  obscene  books  and  paintings  ?  .  .  . 

The  truth  is,  that  the  Bible  has  lain  down  great  principles  of  conduct,  which 
on  all  these  subjects  could  be  easily  applied,  which  are  applied,  and  which 
under  the  guidance  of  equal  honesty  may  be  as  easily  applied  to  the  subject 
of  which  I  am  speaking.”  (No.  305.) 

To  assail  Slavery  is  to  assail  its  supporters,  and  you  think  that  the  Society 
by  discussing  the  subject  would  alienate  multitudes  of  its  best  friends. 
Similar  delicacy,  or,  if  you  please,  prudence,  has  not  been  observed  towards 
the  advocates  of  moderate  drinking.  “  Our  next  opposition  is  from  a  band 
clothed  in  white — professors  of  our  holy  religion — enlisted  soldiers  of  the 
CnuRCiT,  engaged  to  every  good  work  of  benevolence :  they  come  to  inter¬ 
cede  for  the  MONSTER,  (moderate  drinking,)  and  oppose  our  enterprise.  What 
can  be  the  meaning  of  this?  Oh,  where  lies  this  astonishing  witchery? 
What  has  put  the  Church  to  sleep?  What  has  made  her  angry  at  the  call 
to  come  forth  from  the  embrace  of  her  deadliest  foe?”  -(No.  240.)  Were  the 
inquiry  made.  What  witchery  has  made  the  Church  blind,  and  deaf  and 
dumb,  in  regard  to  the  groans  and  sufferings  of  millions  on  our  soil  denied 
the  Word  of  God,  and  forcibly  kept  in  ignorance  and  degradation?  the  true 


8 


answer  would  be,  I  am  persuaded,  “  the  neutrality  of  the  American  Tract 
Society,  and  the  vast  number  of  the  clergy  to  whom  the  fear  of  man  has 
proved  a  snare.” 

Very  strange  is  it  that  while  the  Society  will  not  even  hint  dislike  to 
slavery,  it  brings  against  the  traffic  in  rum  an  array  of  arguments  equally 
effective  and  valid  against  the  traffic  in  men,  women,  and  children.  Thus 
you  urge  the  duty  of  doing  as  you  would  be  done  by,  and  the  remorse  we 
shall  feel  at  death  for  the  suffering  we  have  inflicted,  and  the  great  command 
to  love  our  neighbor  (No.  242) — our  responsibility  to  God  for  the  results  of 
our  own  selfishness  (No.  300) — the  waste  of  human  happiness  (No.  240) — 
that  the  traffic  “tears  asunder  the  strongest  bonds  of  society,  it  severs  the 
tenderest  ties  of  nature”  (No.  249.)  To  the  plea  of  the  rumseller  that  his 
trade  is  his  livelihood,  it  is  answered,  “Beg,  dig,  do  any  thing  but  this.  It 
would  be  a  glorious  martyrdom  to  starve^  contrasted  with  obtaining  a  liveli¬ 
hood  by  such  an  employment.”  (No.  305.)  “Where  have  you  derived 
authority  to  procure  a  living  at  a  sacrifice  of  conscience,  character,  and  the 
dearest  interests  of  others?”  (No.  239.) 

The  Society  shrinks  from  the  opposition  it  would  encounter  from  slave¬ 
holders.  In  your  letter  already  quoted,  you  vindicate  “  the  'peaceful  course 
pursued  by  the  Society,”  and  you  say,  “when  there  shall  be unit'y  of  senti¬ 
ment^  and  a  treatise  of  standard  value  shall  be  written,  such  as  the  Com¬ 
mittee  can  approve,  then  there  will  be  propriety  in  claiming  that  a  Tract 
press  shall  engage  in  this  branch  of  moral  discussion.”  Unless  I  mistake 
your  meaning,  there  is  here  an  implied  promise,  that  when  all  evangelical 
Christians  are  united  in  condemning  slavery,  both  in  theory  and  practice, 
and  when  of  course  the  monster  is  at  his  last  gasp,  and  there  is  no  use  in 
striking  another  blow,  then  the  Society  will  attack  him,  provided  the  Com¬ 
mittee  shall  cordially  agree  as  to  the  weapon  to  be  used.  In  the  mean  time, 
while  the  monster  is  in  full  vigor  and  extending  his  ravages,  you  think  it  best 
“  that  at  least  one  institution  should  move  forward  on  the  simple  errand  that 
brought  the  Saviour  into  the  world — proclaiming  Christ  and  him  crucified,” 
&c.  Happy  is  it.  Sir,  that  this  desire  for  peace,  this  longing  to  proclaim 
Christ  and  him  crucified,  without  heeding  popular  and  prevailing  sins,  was 
not  felt  by  the  Society  till  after  it  had  done  battle  against  gamblers,  dancers, 
theatre-goers.  Sabbath-breakers,  moderate  drinkers,  and  rumsellers.  Your 
tracts  against  intemperance  display  any  thing  but  a  non-resistant  spirit.  For 
example :  “The  demon  will  daunt  the  timid.  It  is  noisy  and  fiery  ;  attack 
it,  and  it  will  roll  its  eyes  and  snap  its  teeth,  and  threaten  vengeance.  At¬ 
tempt  to  starve  it,  and  it  will  rage  like  the  famished  tiger.  Thousands  have 
fed  it  against  their  consciences  rather  than  meet  its  fury.  But  fear  not. 
Be  firm,  be  decided,  be  courageous;  connect  your  cause  with  Heaven.  It  is 
the  cause  of  God,  the  cause  for  which  Immanuel  died.  Let  the  demon  no 
longer  hide  in  the  sanctuar'y.  Expel  for  ever  the  accursed  enemy,  that  the 
Lord  may  bless  us  with  life  and  peace.”  (No.  240.) 

Possibly  the  Society  has  deemed  it  its  duty  to  cooperate  with  Union-Sav¬ 
ing  Committees  and  Baltimore  politicians,  and  cotton  merchants,  in  their 
patriotic  efforts  to  suppress  all  discussion  of  the  “delicate  subject;”  a  dis- 


9 


cussion  having  such  disturbing  influences  on  Northern  trade  and  politics. 
Yet  such  a  supposition  cannot  be  allowed,  after  the  noble  testimony  borne 
by  the  Society  to  the  right  and  benefit  of  free  discussion.  “  There  are  some 
great  principles  in  regard  to  our  country  which  are  settled,  and  which  are 
never  to  be  violated  so  long  as  our  liberties  are  safe.  Among  them  are  these : 
that  every  subject  may  be  subjected  to  candid  and  most  free  discussion; 
that  public  opinion,  enlightened  and  correct,  may  be  turned  against  any 
course  of  evil  conduct ;  that  public  opinion  is,  under  God,  the  prime  source 
of  security  to  our  laws  and  morals,  and  that  men  may  be  induced,  by  ample 
discussion  and  by  the  voice  of  conscience  and  of  reason,  to  abandon  any 
course  that  is  erroneous.”  (No.  305.)  Such  are  the  rights  and  benefits  of 
discussion  when  directed  against  the  seller  of  rum  ;  do  they  lose  all  their 
virtue  when  directed  against  the  seller  of  human  flesh  ? 

Perhaps  your  Society  revolts  at  the  idea  of  descending  into  the  arena  of 
politics ;  but  if  so,  how  are  we  to  understand  the  following  exhortation : 
“  Let  all  who  regard  the  virtue,  the  honor,  and  the  patriotism  of  the  country, 
withhold  their  suffrages  from  those  candidates  who  offer  ardent  spirits  as  a 
bribe  to  secure  their  elevation  to  office.”  But  suppose  they  offer  as  a  bribe 
to  secure  their  elevation  to  office,  not  a  glass  of  brandy  and  water,  but  a 
fresh-discovered  law  of  physical  geography,  precluding  all  legal  restraints 
on  the  extension  of  human  bondage — Baltimore  platforms,  to  destroy  the 
liberty  of  speech,  of  the  press,  and  the  pulpit — indictments  for  high  treason, 
offering  to  the  Southern  Moloch  the  blood  of  Christians  who,  in  the  fear 
of  God,  refuse  when  summoned  to  join  in  slave-hunts — shall  we  withhold 
our  suffrages  ? 

On  the  whole.  Sir,  I  cannot  but  think  that  your  Society  has  greatly  mis¬ 
taken  its  duty  to  God  and  man,  in  shrinking  from  pronouncing  slavery,  as 
well  as  gambling  and  horse-racing,  a  moral  evil.  Unquestionably,  the  So¬ 
ciety  has  acted  in  perfect  accordance  with  the  general  policy  of  the  Northern 
Church,  both  Popish  and  Protestant.  That  policy  is  more  easily  understood 
than  vindicated.  So  intimate  are  our  commercial  relations  with  the  Seuth, 
and  so  dependent  are  our  politicians  for  the  most  trifling  office  upon  the 
support  of  their  party  by  Southern  votes,  that  to  ask  them  and  our  mer¬ 
chants  to  participate  in  measures  and  opinions  offensive  to  their  Southern 
patrons,  is  like  asking  the  favor  of  them  to  pluck  out  a  right  eye,  or  cut  off 
a  right  hand.  Of  course,  the  pecuniary  and  party  interests  of  these  men 
react  on  the  Church  and  religious  Societies  with  which  they  are  connected. 
Hence  has  grown  up  a  secular  and  ecclesiastical  alliance,  offensive  and  de¬ 
fensive,  with  slavery.  But  this  alliance,  though  undoubtedly  embracing 
many  worthy  men,  is,  nevertheless,  in  direct  antagonism  with  the  gospel  of 
Christ,  and  has  consequently  led,  and  is  daily  leading  to  most  disastrous 
results.  It  has  caused  the  avowal,  by  men  of  high  position  in  both  Church 
and  State,  of  principles  utterly  subversive  of  that  regard  for  justice  and 
mercy  which  is  not  only  one  of  the  peculiar  and  beautiful  features  of  our 
holy  religion,  but  also,  and  especially  in  a  Democracy,  one  of  the  strongest 
safeguards  of  person  and  property.  Some  slaveholders  in  Congress  propose 
a  law,  the  provisions  of  which  may  well  have  been  inspired  by  that  evil  and 


10 


malignant  spirit  that  goeth  about  seeking  whom  he  may  devour — a  law 
openly  setting  at  defiance  the  established  rules  of  evidence,  and  levelling  in 
the  dust  all  the  barriers  erected  by  the  common  law  around  the  personal 
liberty  of  the  citizen — a  law  requiring  every  man,  at  the  summons  of  a 
miscreant  slave-catcher,  to  assist  him  in  his  damnable  work — a  law  seeking 
by  fine  and  imprisonment  to  suppress  the  impulses  of  humanity  and  the 
gushings  of  Christian  sympathy.  No  sooner  is  this  accursed  law  proposed 
than  rival  politicians  contend  for  the  honor  of  giving  it  their  support,  and 
no  sooner  is  it  enacted  than  the  two  great  rival  parties  strive  to  gain  votes 
for  their  Presidential  candidates  by  pledging  their  best  endeavors  to  carry  it 
into  execution.  Many  individuals,  however,  affirm  that  a  law  thus  requiring 
them  to  participate  in  deeds  of  cruelty  and  injustice,  is  at  variance  with  the 
Divine  commands.  Forthwith  we  have  our  public  men  and  our  party  press 
sneering  at  the  “higher  law,”  and  insulting  all  who  acknowledge  its  para¬ 
mount  authority  to  an  act  of  Congress  ;  worse  than  all,  we  have  our  minis¬ 
ters  of  the  Lord  Jesus  Christ  descanting  from  their  pulpits  on  the  reverence 
due  to  the  “powers  that  be,”  as  ordained  of  God,  and  actually  urging  the 
duty  of  obedience  to  one  of  the  most  ungodly  and  execrable  enactments  of 
modern  legislation.  Occasionally  it  was  indeed  admitted  that,  under  peculiar 
circumstances,  and  multiplied  conditions,  we  ought  to  obey  God  rather  than 
man ;  but  at  the  same  time  it  was  distinctly  taught,  not  merely  that  we 
should  not  forcibly  resist  the  Fugitive  Law,  but  that  the  “  higher  law”  did 
not  dispense  with  our  obligation  to  catch  slaves. 

In  the  zeal,  the  rivalry,  and  the  cruelty  displayed  in  seizing  the  hapless 
and  innocent  fugitive  and  hurrying  him  back  to  the  house  of  bondage,  of 
mental  darkness  and  bodily  suffering,  lessons  of  cruelty  and  injustice  have 
been  set  by  the  rich  and  moral,  which  will  not  be  lost  on  the  needy  and 
profligate.  Many  of  our  wealthy  and  influential  gentlemen  are  sowing  seeds 
which  may  yet  yield  to  them  and  their  children  most  bitter  fruit. 

The  shocking  insensibility  of  our  churches,  religious  societies,  and  religi¬ 
ous  men,  to  the  iniquities  of  slavery,  of  course  involves  them  in  gross  incon¬ 
sistencies,  degrades  the  character  of  the  gospel  of  Christ,  and  gives  a  mighty 
impulse  to  infidelity.  Never  before,  in  my  opinion,  has  the  American  Church 
been  in  such  peril  as  at  present,  and  from  almost  every  portion  of  it  comes 
up  a  cry  of  distress.  There  is  no  failure  of  money.  The  country  is  rich, 
and  our  wealthy  men  are  liberal,  and  pride  and  ostentation  and  competition 
secure  the  erection  of  gorgeous  and  expensive  churches.  But  there  is  a 
failure  of  increase  of  ministers  and  members.  The  population  is  outgrow¬ 
ing  the  Church,  and  the  love  of  many  is  waxing  cold.  From  men  like  Tom 
Paine  and  most  of  his  followers  the  Church  has  little  to  fear.  They  hate 
the  gospel  because  their  deeds  are  evil.  Their  lites  are  a  sufficient  antidote 
to  their  doctrines.  But  a  new  class  of  converts  to  infidelity  is  springing  up, 
men  whose  fearless  and  disinterested  fidelity  to  truth,  mercy,  and  justice, 
extort  unwilling  respect.  These  men  reject  the  gospel,  not  because  it  re¬ 
bukes  their  vices,  but  because  they  are  taught  by  certain  of  its  clergy,  and 
the  conduct  of  a  multitude  of  its  professors,  that  it  sanctions  the  most  hor¬ 
rible  cruelty  and  oppression,  allowing  the  rich  and  powerful  forcibly  to  reduce 


11 


the  poor  and  helpless  to  the  condition  of  working  animals,  articles  of  com¬ 
merce,  and  to  keep  their  posterity  in  ignorance  and  degradation  to  the  end 
of  time.  Every  argument  wrested  from  the  Bible  in  behalf  of  slavery  ap¬ 
plies  to  the  bondage  of  white  men.  Hence  the  modern  pro-slavery  divinity 
justifies  the  ancient  villenage  and  the  modern  serfdom,  and  would  justify 
their  indefinite  extension.  If  it  be  right  to  hold  three  millions  of  human 
beings  as  chattels,  it  is  equally  right  to  hold  hundreds  of  millions.  Hence 
Christianity,  if  it  indeed  authorizes  this  unlimited  despotism  of  the  strong 
over  the  weak — this  vast,  indefinite  annihilation  of  the  conjugal  and  parental 
relations — this  total  abrogation  of  the  rights  of  conscience,  of  property,  of 
personal  happiness,  has  surely  little  claim  to  our  reverence,  for  its  tendency 
to  mitigate  the  sorrows  and  troubles  of  the  present  life.  Certainly  it  is  not 
wonderful  that  benevolent,  well-meaning  men  should  question  the  divine 
authority  of  a  religion  sanctioning  such  tremendous  enormities,  and  whose 
professors  recommend  the  catching  of  slaves,  as  a  service  acceptable  to  the 
Deity,  when  required  by  act  of  Congress. 

Most  orthodox.  Sir,  is  the  faith  professed  by  the  Society !  I  thank  my  God 
and  Heavenly  Father  that  he  has  given  me  grace  to  embrace  with  my  whole 
heart  and  understanding  the  doctrines  you  denominate  evangelical.  But  it 
behooves  us  all  to  remember  that  a  workless  faith  is  a  worthless  faith.  Can 
we  refuse  obedience  to  the  second  of  the  two  great  commandments  on  which 
hang  all  the  law  and  the  prophets,  and  yet  hope  to  be  saved  for  our  ortho¬ 
doxy?  Very  properly  your  Society  has  not  confined  itself  to  the  simple 
proclamation  of  Christ  and  him  crucified,  but  has  added  practice  to  faith  by 
assailing  sin  in  its  various  forms,  laboring  to  convince  the  sinner  of  his  guilt, 
and  striving  to  excite  him  to  repentance  and  reformation.  But  the  sin  most 
rampant  in  our  land— a  sin  which  counts  its  victims  by  millions,  and  its  per¬ 
petrators,  abettors,  and  apologists  by  millions  more — a  sin  which  taints  our 
holy  things,  enfeebles  our  churches,  corrupts  our  statesmen,  sways  our 
judges,  hardens  the  hearts  of  our  people,  blunts  their  sense  of  mercy  and 
justice,  and  which  is  crowding  the  ranks  of  infidelity — this  sin  may  not  be 
mentioned  in  our  fashionable  pulpits  to  “  ears  polite,”  nor  even  alluded  to 
in  the  multifarious  publications  of  the  American  Tract  Society ! 

And  now.  Sir,  what  is  to  be  done?  Your  response  of  course  is.  Nothing. 
You  will  be  at  no  loss  for  arguments  to  show,  that  any  anti-slavery  action 
on  your  part  will  not  merely  diminish  your  receipts,  and  thus  lessen  your 
ability  to  do  good,  but  will  also  prevent  your  tracts  and  volumes  from  con¬ 
veying  religious  truth  to  the  inhabitants  of  the  slave  States.  The  question  of 
duty  is  not  to  be  decided  by  an  estimate  of  probable  receipts.  Nor  is  it  by 
any  means  certain  that  your  policy  is  the  wisest  in  a  pecuniary  sense,  or  that 
one  or  two  tracts  condemning  American  Slavery  as  a  moral  evil  would  prove 
injurious  to  your  treasury.  The  persistence  of  the  American  Board  in  coun¬ 
tenancing  slavery  in  its  mission  churches,  in  deference  to  the  contributions  of 
its  Southern  patrons,  called  into  existence  the  present  flourishing  and  eflBcient 
“American  Missionary  Association,”  daily  growing  in  strength  and  public 
favor.  This  new  institution  is  almost  wholly  supported  by  former  sub¬ 
scribers  to  the  Board.  In  the  last  report  of  the  Board,  I  find  the  total 


12 


amonnt  of  donations  received  the  preceding  year  stated  at  $299,703  90.  Of 
this  sum,  10,267  25  came  from  the  slave  States  and  the  District  of  Columbia. 
Now  the  last  report  of  the  Association  announces  the  receipt  of  $31,134  60 
for  the  past  year.  Nearly  every  cent  of  this  sum  is  virtually  a  'premium 
paid  by  the  Board  on  its  Southern  subscriptions  !  The  American  Tract  So- 
ciet}'-,  if  I  am  not  much  mistaken,  is  destined  to  pay  a  premium  of  the  like 
kind. 

You  will  perhaps  say  that  it  is  better  our  Southern  brethren  should  be 
saved  as  slaveholders,  breeders,  and  traders,  than  not  at  al),  and  therefore 
you  will  not  touch  the  subject  of  slavery,  because,  if  you  do,  you  cannot 
reach  them  with  your  tracts,  which  under  God  might  lead  to  their  conver¬ 
sion  and  salvation.  If  this  principle  be  correct,  it  is  of  wide  application. 
The  Territory  of  Utah  is  acquiring  a  large  population,  and  will  soon  claim 
admission  into  the  Union.  The  people  are  polygamists,  but  it  is  better 
they  should  be  saved  as  such  than  not  at  all.  Hence  it  becomes  the  duty  of 
the  Society,  for  fear  of  offending  them,  to  avoid  all  allusion  to  the  Christian 
doctrine  of  marriage,  and  to  “  mave  forward  on  the  simple  errand  that 
brought  the  Saviour  into  the  world,  proclaiming  Christ  and  him  crucified,” 
and  thus  rendering  the  tracts  acceptable  and  useful  to  our  Mormon  brethren. 
So,  also,  as  the  usefulness  of  the  minister  of  Christ  depends  on  his  message 
being  heard,  he  ought  to  preach  smooth  things,  lest,  by  offending  his  people, 
by  telling  them  unwelcome  truths,  he  drive  them  beyond  the  sound  of  the 
gospel. 

I  believe.  Sir,  not  only  that  this  reasoning  is  unsound,  but  that  the  appre¬ 
hension  on  which  it  is  founded  is  groundless.  It  is  not  desired  by  any  that 
your  institution  should  be  converted  into  an  Anti-slavery  any  more  than 
into  an  Anti-gambling  Tract  Society.  All  that  is  asked  is,  that  this  great 
and  influential  Christian  Association  should  publicly  dissent  from  the  im¬ 
pious  claim  made  by  the  advocates  of  American  slavery,  that  this  vast  mass 
of  accumulated  sin  and  misery  is  sanctioned  by  the  God  of  mercy  and  jus¬ 
tice,  and  allowed  by  the  crucified  Redeemer ;  in  other  words,  that  American 
slavery  should  share  in  the  condemnation  you  bestow  on  “the  theatre,  the 
circus,  and  the  horse-race.” 

Were  you  to  issue  one  or  two  tracts  against  American  slavery  as  a  moral 
evil,  will  it  be  seriously  contended  that  thenceforth  none  of  your  thousands 
of  publications  on  other  subjects  would  be  allowed  to  cross  the  frontiers  of 
the  slave  region?  Recollect,  Sir,  that  when  a  human  chattel  of  three  years 
will  bring  $300  at  auction,  and  its  two  parents  from  $1,500  to  $2,000,  slaves 
are  and  must  be  the  possession  only  of  the  rich.  By  the  census  of  1840, 
(I  have  not  the  last  at  hand,)  there  were  in  the  slave  States,  1,016,807  white 
males  over  twenty  years  of  age,  and  of  these,  various  data  assure  me  it  is  a 
very  liberal  estimate,  that  200,000  were  the  holders  of  slaves.  And  is  it 
possible.  Sir,  that  of  this  prodigious  majority  of  non-slaveholders,  none  will 
read  any  of  your  biographies  and  religious  treatises,  because  they  may  have 
heard  that  you  have  published  one  or  two  little  tracts  against  a  sin  of  which 
they  are  themselves  guiltless?  When  “Uncle  Tom’s  Cabin”  is  sold  and 
read  at  the  South,  is  it  credible  that  a  few  slaveholders  can  exclude  all  your 


13 


millions  of  pages  from  the  vast  Southern  region  ?  Can  your  agents  and 
colporteurs  be  excluded  from  fifteen  States  of  this  Union,  because,  of  the 
mighty  mass  of  jmur  publications,  twenty  or  thirty  pages  are  directed 
against  the  conduct  of  a  few  rich  men  ?  The  apprehension  that,  should  the 
Society  be  faithful  to  the  calls  of  duty,  its  efficiency  for  good  would  be  im¬ 
paired,  is  not,  in  my  opinion,  consistent  with  that  Christian  faith  so  forcibly 
inculcated  in  many  of  your  tracts.  For  myself,  I  firmly  believe  that  before 
long  the  Society  will  find  its  present  policy  productive  not  of  strength,  but 
of  weakness.  That  policy  has  given  birth  to  the  “American  Keform  Tract 
and  Book  Society.”  In  a  late  acknowledgment  of  receipts. by  this  infant 
institution,  I  observe  contributions  from  no  less  than  eight  States. 

To  me  it  seems  obvious  that  Christians  entertaining  such  contradictory 
views  of  the  divine  attributes  of  the  spirit  of  the  gospel  and  of  Christian 
obligation  as  are  involved  in  the  justification  and  condemnation  of  American 
slavery,  cannot  much  longer  act  together  in  sending  missionaries  to  preach, 
or  employing  the  press  to  inculcate  a  religion  respecting  the  fundamental 
moral  principles  of  which  the  two  parties  entertain  such  antagonistic 
opinions. 

It  is  one  of  the  incidents  of  our  imperfect  state,  that  sincere  Christians 
often  think  they  are  doing  God  service,  while  pursuing  opposite  paths,  and 
when  of  course  one  or  the  other  must  tend  in  a  wrong  direction.  May  we 
accord  to  others  the  charity  we  ask  for  ourselves ;  and  I  pray  God  that  those 
who  condemn  in  others  the  sin  of  oppressing  their  brethren  may  feel  their 
own  unworthiness,  and  remember  that  they  themselves,  no  less  than  the 
wretched  slave-catcher,  need  to  be  washed  in  that  blood  which  alone  cleans- 
eth  from  all  sin, 

I  am,  Rev.  Sir,  your  obed’t  servant, 


WILLIAM  JAY. 


14 


INDIAN  MISSIONS. 


New-York,  8th  March,  1853. 

Dear  Sir  : — I  have  read  with  great  pain  the  exposure,  in  a  late  number  of 
the  American  Missionary,  of  the  conduct  of  the  American  Board  in  relation 
to  the  Choctaw  and  Cherokee  Indians.  This  powerful  Society  has  estab¬ 
lished  missions  in  these  two  tribes  of  our  Aborigines,  who  have  so  far  ad¬ 
vanced  in  civilization  and  the  adoption  of  “  our  institutions”  as  to  hold  and 
use  certain  of  their  fellow-men  as  beasts  of  burden.  The  missionaries  sent 
among  these  people,  instead  of  teaching  them  the  Christian  duties  of  justice 
and  mercy,  have  virtually  instructed  them  that  they  might  be  good  Chris¬ 
tians  without  loving  their  neighbors,  or  doing  to  others  as  they  would  others 
should  do  unto  them.  Says  a  Secretary  of  the  Board,  who  had  visited  the 
missions,  “  It  does  not  seem  to  have  been  the  aim  of  the  brethren  [mission¬ 
aries]  to  exert  any  direct  influence,  either  by  their  public  or  private  teach¬ 
ings,  upon  the  system  of  slavery.” 

In  the  last  Report  we  find  the  Board  extolling  their  converts  as  saints, 
and  eulogizing  the  governments  established  by  these  slaveholding  Indians, 
although  tolerating  and  perpetrating  atrocities  unknown  to  the  despotisms 
of  Europe. 

We  are  told,  (p.  29,)  “  The  Choctaws  have  a  good  government.  They 
have  a  written  constitution,  with  a  declaration  of  rights,  which  embodies 
the  liberty  of  the  press,  trial  by  jury,  the  rights  of  conscience,  proper  safe¬ 
guards  of  person  and  property,  the  equality  of  Christian  denominations,  and 
almost  every  great  principle  of  civil  and  religious  freedom.” 

Certainly  the  Board  are  by  no  means  ultra  in  their  ideas  of  civil  and  reli¬ 
gious  freedom,  and  the  rights  of  conscience.  What  is  the  religious  freedom 
of  their  own  missionaries?  “If  any  citizen  of  the  United  States,”  says  a 
law  of  this  good  government,  “acting  as  a  missionary  or  preacher,  or 
whatever  his  occupation  may  be,  is  found  to  take  an  active  part  in  favoring 
the  principles  and  notions  of  the  most  fatal  and  destructive  doctrines  of  the 
abolitionists,  he  shall  be  compelled  to  leave  the  nation,  and  for  ever  stay 
out  of  it.”  Of  course,  men  of  God  like  Wesley,  Hopkins,  and  Edwards, 
are  disqualified  from  preaching  the  gospel  among  the  Choctaws ;  for  such 
men  would  not,  like  the  missionaries  of  the  Board,  consent  to  be  gagged  on 
the  obligation  to  do  justice  and  love  mercy.  Not  only  must  these  mission¬ 
aries  be  dumb  on  the  iniquities  of  slavery,  but  they  can  remain  at  their  posts 
only  on  condition  of  not  violating  the  law  of  Caste,  since  the  statute  de- 


I 


15 


dares  that  allowing  slaves  to  “  sit  at  table  with  them  shall  be  ground  to 
convict  persons  of  favoring  the  principles  and  notions  of  abolitionism.”  So, 
if  a  missionary  presumes  to  eat  with  a  slave,  perhaps  his  spiritual  son  in  the 
gospel,  he  is  to  be  expelled  the  nation,  and  ever  stay  out  of  it !  and  so  he  is 
if  he  dares  to  teach  a  slave  to  read  the  Bible  without  the  consent  of  his 
master!  This  good  government  provides  ^’‘proper  safeguards  of  person  and 
property  f  by  enacting  that  a  slave  shall  possess  no  property^  and  that  his 
person  shall  be  a  vendible  article.  “  Civil  freedom"  is  secured  by  a  law 
which  declares  that  if  fmj  free  negroes  shall  return  into  the  nation,  “  they 
shall  he  seized  and  sold  to  the  highest  bidder  for  life."  By  another  law,  any 
free  negro  presuming  to  enter  and  remain  in  the  nation  is  to  receive  one 
hundred  lashes  on  his  hare  haclc^  and  to  forfeit  all  the  property  he  may 
possess ! 

We  are  officially  assured  (p.  32)  that  “the  Cherokees  have  an  excellent 
GOVERNMENT !  tho  usual  Safeguards  for  person,  property,  the  rights  of  con¬ 
science,  &c.,  are  provided.”  This  same  excellent  government  deprives  of  all 
the  rights  of  citizenship  every  child  of  a  red  man  by  a  black  or  yellow  wife  ; 
declares  void  every  marriage  of  the  kind,  and  subjects  the  parties  to  scourg¬ 
ing  !  Whoever  teaches  a  slave,  or  any  free  negro.,  not  of  Cherokee  blood, 
to  read  or  write,  is  to  be  fined  from  $100  to  $500.  This  exception  in  favor 
of  negroes  of  their  own  blood  is  a  natural  prejudice  which  our  more  civilized 
slaveholders  have  most  effectually  conquered.  In  our  Christian  slave  codes 
we  find  no  favor  whatever  shown  to  negroes  of  Anglo-Saxon  blood.  Free 
negroes  are  to  be  expelled  from  the  nation. 

And  now  I  ask  what  is  the  inference  to  be  drawn  from  this  strange,  false, 
blundering,  but  official  eulogy  of  these  Indian  slaveholding  governments? 
Why,  that  the  slave  codes  of  our  Southern  States,  with  all  their  execrable 
wickedness,  crushing  in  the  dust  three  millions  of  immortal  beings,  are 
perfectly  compatible  with  good  and  excellent  government !  Even  the  gov¬ 
ernment  of  South  Carolina,  under  which  more  than  one  half  of  the  whole 
population,  men,  women,  and  children,  are  articles  of  merchandize,  and 
robbed  of  every  civil  and  religious  right,  is  a  proper  subject  of  Christian 
eulogy!  What  amount  of  tyranny,  cruelty,  and  wickedness  constitutes  a 
had  government,  we  are  not  informed.  Certainly  the  Board  has  relieved 
itself  from  all  suspicion  of  anti-slavery  fanaticism,  and  has  proved  itself  de¬ 
serving  the  pecuniary  patronage  of  our  “  Southern  brethren.”  A  few  years 
since,  in  consequence  of  pressure  from  without,  it  announced  to  the  public 
that  “it  can  sustain  no  relation  to  slavery  which  implies  approbation  of  the 
system,  and  as  a  Board  can  have  no  connection  or  sympathy  with  it.”  But, 
like  many  others,  the  Board  has  since  “  conquered  its  prejudices.” 

It  maybe  asked.  Would  you  abandon  these  Indians  to  heathenism  because 
they  are  slaveholders  ?  I  answer,  I  would  not  present  the  gospel  to  these 
or  any  other  people  in  such  a  form  as  to  lead  them  to  believe  that  Chris¬ 
tianity  authorized  them  to  abandon  to  heathenism  the  poor  and  oppressed 
among  them,  by  subjecting  them  to  enforced  ignorance  and  degradation ; 
and  this  is  what  the  Board  is  virtually  doing.  But  why  prefer  preaching 
the  gospel  under  a  gag  to  preaching  it  with  perfect  freedom  to  other  Indians 


► 


16 


who  hold  no  slaves  ?  Had  the  missionaries,  with  Christian  firmness  and 
fidelity,  pointed  out  to  these  Indians  the  wickedness  of  their  laws,  and  the 
inconsistency  of  their  slaveholding  with  the  precepts  of  Christianity,  they 
would  no  doubt  have  done  great  good ;  and  had  they  been  expelled  for  their 
fidelity,  they  would  have  honored  Christ  by  suffering  in  his  cause,  instead 
of  bringing  a  reproach  on  his  religion  by  their  time-serving  policy.  In  such 
a  case,  the  Board  would  have  lost  some,  perhaps  all,  their  Southern  sub¬ 
scribers  ;  but  what  amount  of  subscriptions  will  compensate  for  the  virtual 
although  silent  abrogation  among  these  Indian  converts  of  the  second  of 
the  two  great  commandments  on  which  hang  all  the  law  and  the  prophets, 
so  far  as  it  affects  their  obligations  to  men  not  colored  like  themselves  ? 

I  cannot  persuade  myself  that  we  are  justified  in  the  sight  of  God  in  con¬ 
cealing  any  divine  command  or  prohibition,  for  the  purpose  of  rendering  the 
gospel  more  palatable  to  those  to  whom  we  present  it.  I  have  heretofore 
occasionally  contributed  to  the  funds  of  the  American  Board,  but  can  do  so 
no  more  ;  and  I  rejoice  that  in  sending  you  the  enclosed  check*  I  have  the 
full  assurance  that  I  am  in  no  degree  strengthening  influences  adverse  to  the 
right,  happiness,  and  religious  improvement  of  an  afflicted  portion  of  the 
human  family. 

Yours  faithfully, 

Lewis  Tapp  an.  Esq.,  WILLIAM  JAY 

Treasurer  of  the  American  Missionary  Association. 


*  For  One  Hundred  Dollars. 


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